


boxing day

by lyricalprose (fairylights)



Series: 2013 Fic Advent Calendar [13]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: 2013 Fic Advent Calendar, F/M, Gen, Post-Episode: s01e14 The Christmas Invasion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-18
Updated: 2013-12-18
Packaged: 2018-01-05 01:18:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1087898
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fairylights/pseuds/lyricalprose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“It looks better on you,” a voice says from somewhere behind her, and it takes Rose longer than she’d like to admit to place it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	boxing day

**Author's Note:**

> [andrastesgrace](http://andrastesgrace.tumblr.com) asked “The newly-regenerated Tenth Doctor and Rose Tyler have a conversation after The Christmas Invasion that helps Rose cement in her mind that the New New Doctor and the Doctor in leather are the same man. Bonus points if it includes Rose wearing the leather jacket.”
> 
> Fill #13 for my [2013 fic advent calendar](http://lyricalprose.tumblr.com/tagged/2013-fic-advent-calendar).

When Rose wakes up the morning after Christmas, she’s on the couch in her mum’s flat.  
  
The place looks like a tornado’s ripped through it – and one sort of has, so that’s not _too_ odd. There are bits of wrapping paper littering the floor and empty bottles on the end table. There’s no noise coming from the kitchen, or from the direction of her mum’s bedroom, so there’s a fair chance that even though the wall clock reads ten forty-five, Jackie Tyler is keeping to her Boxing Day tradition of avoiding the inevitable hangover by sleeping in as long as possible.  
  
The Doctor, however, is nowhere to be found.

  
Rose vaguely recalls him saying he was going to pop out to the TARDIS the night before, long after dinner and crackers and a trip out to the courtyard to watch the not-snow cover the world in white. In fact, she’s fairly certain that he’d said it while he sat next to her on this couch, and has a fuzzy idea that he might be responsible for the red fleece blanket she’s been sleeping under all night.  
  
But if he has gone out to the TARDIS, he still hasn’t returned.  
  
She wriggles out from under the blanket, wincing slightly upon coming into contact with the colder air of the flat, and looks around for her shoes – can’t exactly wander around in the ash in her stocking feet, after all. However, the shoes aren’t in the sitting room, or the hallway, or any of the other open areas of the flat.  
  
They’re in her old room, in fact – her mum probably chucked them there, as part of her usual tipsy, half-hearted attempt to tidy up the place after Christmas dinner – and they’re right next to a heap of familiar clothes that she’d forgotten were on the floor there, thrown to the side in the midst of the near-catastrophe that was the last few days.  
  
Jeans, a jumper, and the leather jacket. The jacket that she’s used to feeling underneath her fingers when she hugs the Doctor, that she’s used to smelling when they stand close together, that she’s used to searching for in a crowd whenever they get separated. When she picks it up off the ground and holds it close, the odor of engine grease and smoke is still there, worked deep into the leather.  
  
Suddenly, Rose isn’t so sure that she wants to go find the Doctor just now.  
  
—  
  
The roof of the apartment block has always been one of Rose’s favorite places.  
  
It’s a brilliant place to come when she needs a bit of time alone – when her mum is being particularly shrill, or Mickey’s been a wanker, or it’s just been one of those days. No one else seems to like it much, though, probably on account of how cold it gets up this high.  
  
She’s not cold just now, though, even though it’s December in London. She’s wrapped up in the Doctor’s jacket, and between the way that it’s much too big for her and the fact that the leather is excellent at keeping out the chill, Rose is actually quite comfortable.  
  
It’s nice to have a little quiet, up here on the roof. She hasn’t been alone, on her own, for what feels like _ages_ – certainly not since before the Game Station. In fact, not since Kyoto, she realizes with a start. Not since she said goodnight to Jack and the Doctor and retreated to her own room at the hot spring. Even that had only been for a few hours – the Doctor had woken her up in the middle of the night, rather apologetically, and informed her that they needed to run, and run _quickly._ Then it was all sprinting to the TARDIS and dodging arrows and laughing while Jack tried to run and do up his trousers at the same time, and the next thing Rose knew she was waking up on the cold metal floor of a dark studio.  
  
And then there’d been that horrible, horrible game, and Daleks, and the Doctor sending her home, and a long stretch of hazy, washed-out memory that she can’t quite call back, no matter how hard she tries – it all just comes back as a blur of gold and song, a half-remembered dream where she can see everything and nothing, where the Doctor looks at her like something _new_ and she thinks she knows what it feels like to have his lips on hers.  
  
Rose had been sure she was all cried out by now, but she can feel tears pricking at the corners of her eyes anyways.  
  
“It looks better on you,” a voice says from somewhere behind her, and it takes Rose longer than she’d like to admit to place it.  
  
She swipes at her eyes quickly and turns around to see the Doctor, the _new_ Doctor, standing at the edge of the roof. He’s in the same brown pinstripes and long overcoat he’d been wearing the night before, and Rose has to admit that the outfit suits him rather perfectly.  
  
“You like it up here, hm?” The Doctor’s voice is as neutral as possible, and Rose nods in answers to the question, still trying to hide the fact that she’s wiping tears from her eyes. “It’s not the first time I’ve found you up here on the roof.”  
  
The Doctor shuffles over to where she’s sitting, and after a brief glimpse at her face he asks, concerned, “Have you been crying?”  
  
“No,” Rose lies, and the Doctor frowns.  
  
“You’re lying,” he says darkly. Rose shoots him a dubious look, which produces an immediate “Sorry,” a sentiment she can already tell comes a bit too easily to these new lips of his. She’s not sure what he’s apologizing for – for changing, maybe, or for not telling her that that might happen – but she appreciates the sentiment, all the same.  
  
“It’s not your fault,” she says, and means it, for the most part. “It’s just – a lot, you know. It’s been a – a rough couple of days.”  
  
She sniffles, feeling a bit pathetic, and the Doctor reaches for her hand, tangling their fingers together.  
  
He doesn’t offer to stay, and she doesn’t offer to leave; instead, he just says, “We’ll be ready to go soon. The TARDIS is in good shape, now.”  
  
“Good,” Rose says, quietly, and his fingers tighten around hers. She reaches up with her free hand and points towards the sky, at a clear blue patch of the heavens straight above and slightly to the right. “You said we’d go that way, right? What’s that way, exactly,?”  
  
He smiles, and tells her.


End file.
